Assessment of Health Commodities Inventory Management Practices and Challenges: The Case of Zewditu Memorial Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
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Date
2017-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Background: Health commodities inventory management practices provide current information
on quantities of health commodities consumed as well as enables to accurately estimate
requirements for future use. A poorly functioning health commodities inventory management
can lead to frequent stock outs leading to services interruptions or overstock.
The objective of the study was to assess the health commodities inventory management
practice of the Zewditu Memorial Hospital using primary data that was collected through a
semi-structured questionnaire, observation check list & interview. Out of the 91 questionnaires
that were distributed to the purposively elected employees of the hospital, 77 (84.6%) of them
were collected back and used for the analysis .Besides 4 hospital stores were visited & all the
required information were included in this study .Data was analyzed using descriptive statics .
The study found that ZMH health commodities to be long-term agreements between the
hospital and its suppliers, maintain proper store management the majority of the store managers
had adequate knowledge how to store and practiced health commodities and they had also a
positive attitude towards the importance of appropriate storage of commodities, obsolete,
expired, or damaged inventories properly identified and segregated, inventory records
reconciled to advantage reports on a regular basis and management have review the
reconciliation of physical inventory counts to the inventory records applied at ZMH but ,uses
automatic stock tracking and adequate detailed written inventory instructions and procedures
exist, uses Enterprise Resource Planning system, maintains a data base for all suppliers, uses
Just In Time stock control system and an integrated information sharing system were not
applicable at ZMH. Finally from the study it can be concluded that the main challenges of the
hospital in managing inventory are: lack of modern technologies, insufficient funding, lack of inventory management training, the length of bureaucratic processes in the procurement system
and stock out of health commodities. In general the consequences of the above were occurred
high level of stock out which might have leaded to services interruptions at ZMH health
commodities.
Based on these findings, the study recommends that government allocates more funds to public
hospitals to be invested in modern information technologies because this will lead to increased
information sharing, reduction of costs and improved quality of health services. In addition,
inventory management training should be given to improve the availability and the quality of
services in ZMH.
Key words: Health commodities inventory management, stores, medicines, medical supplies
medical equipments, laboratory commodities
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Keywords
Health commodities inventory management, Stores, Medicines, Medical supplies, Medical equipments, Laboratory commoditie